My latest work horse

[Paul Haese]

Tuesday I took delivery of my latest work horse. A Software Bisque Paramount ME. A trip to the Riverland to pick it up (second hand unit) took about 5 hours and was nice to meet some fellows up there. Brad Moore did the work to the mount which I bought from Ken Crawford. Thanks Ken it looks a nice mount.

Couple of observation.

This thing is big. About as tall as an EM400 but wider by a significant amount. All the parts are nicely machined and finished as you would expect and it all seems to work well.

It took some time to get Tpoint to work with the Sky6 but as it turned out it was Vista related. All now working in compatibility mode.

Connection to the mount is easy lots of features become available once connected. Everything fired up well and the mount is working well. I watched the PE graph for about 10 minutes to see if any glaring jumps but nothing appeared (that is a good sign and means that the worm has been installed correctly) out of the ordinary.

Once I get the pier adapter plate I will do a PE graph test and then sort out PEC and doing a Tpoint map as well as polar alignment. I am already familiar with Sky6 as I was using it with the EM400.

Hopefully by end of February I will have several images to display which are taken with the new mount. Exciting times.

Any tips would be really appreciated from mount owners.

[jase]

Great work Paul. You'll enjoy it immensely. I purchased a brand spanking new one through Mr. Ward a few months ago with strong AU dollar.

Not sure about the tips. The PME is a turn key set up. Thats what you're paying for. No more fluffing around trying to get the balance right, worm and backlash tuned. Productive imaging awaits. They are extremely easy to set up but if in doubt speak with Rally. It really is a no brainer however and well described in Bisques documentation.

[h0ughy]

well congratulations Paul - i was going to get the mount but on threat of death i had to let it go. Be great to see how you go with it.

[allan gould]

Most excellent buy, Paul. You will have a great time with this mount. All power to you.

[Paul Haese]

Have you found Jase that there is a lot of doubling up in the manual? I reckon I read the same things several times in the manual. Only on page 102 though at present. I want to read it then reread it several times so that I get the format down pat.

[strongmanmike]

Awesome mate (jealous), now what to put on top of THAT, the 8" GSO RC just won't cut it dude, will look waaay outta place man ;) :lol:

Mike

[gregbradley]

Great purchase Paul.

Your EM400 is very nice but the PME is a whole lot better.
As Jase points out it is pretty much plug and play. I like the way it interfaces with the Sky 6 so well. No more having to click on revese X when you flip the meridian or have to put in the Dec inn CCDsoft. All done automatically. Home positon is great as well.

Mine already had PEC curve in it so I haven't updated that yet. I am sure it isn't too hard.

T point is very good. But I am not sure it is 100% accurate everytime for polar alignment. I did a drift alignment first through the CCD. Then Tpoint
6 point model and did the adjustments it recommended for adjusting polar alignment.

One point, if the roof is closed don't turn on your computer and the mount. It may start up automatically and start to go to home position or at least that seemed to happen to me once. Luckily I had the roof open. Now I open the roof before I turn on the computer just in case it has ideas of taking off before I tell it to!

I also had a weird experience with it recently.

I had it all perfectly balanced and polar aligned to a very close degree. I bumped my head a couple of times on my scope which is kind of high up but does not fully clear my head!!. All of a sudden my goto's are way off, my autoguiding is absolutely gone and inaccurate. I was wondering if the rains had caused shift like Fred has had happened.

After many hours of redoing Tpoint models and redrift aligning the mount, changing over my guide camera, callibrating several times it seemed to boil down to I had installed a plug in to do dithering. It seemed to be also active on the autoguider instead of only the main camera. So after every guide exposure it shifted the mount 1 or 2 pixels in a spiral pattern!

I also found balancing the scope is not as critical on the PME as other mounts. It seems very strong and capable.

Apart from that it is a turn on and get great round stars guiding everytime.

I also use the joystick to centre the objects in the images. You need to move it a small amount and very briefly. With my joystick one side seems more sensitive than the other so it can send the object much further than expected one side than the other. A minor thing.

The mount makes weird electronic noises like a fax machine. Apparently that is normal. It took a bit of getting used to after the nice quiet NJP mount.

For connecting the autoguider to the computer select "direct guide" in the CCDsoft autoguide dialogue box menu. That way you do not need another cable from the autoguider to the mount just the USB cable from
the autoguider to the computer and the computer USB cable to the mount.

I used the Chuck Faranda driver for the Tak Temma mounts and that has a park option, it also has a timer which I used all the time. I need a simple application that has a timer to turn the tracking off or turn the mount off when programming an imaging run. Otherwise its a problem in the morning to get out there and turn it off before it flips the scope upside down. Another way of achieving that would be to program in the mount limits properly which I haven't done for the western side of the meridian.
I was thinking of getting a power point timer from Bunnings so I can have a physical turn the power off at a certain time to be sure in case I sleep in and it keeps in tracking too far.

Greg.

[dugnsuz]

Congratulations Paul - you're moving along in this fine hobby exponentially!!!
Are you setting up at home or your remote site?
Doug

[jase]

Partly, but to be honest I didn't read it cover to cover. Yours was probably already set up for southern hemisphere operations in the firmware so the key work is done. Mine shipped from the factory as such was set up for northern hemisphere operations so required a few quick tweaks. The MKS4000 telescope control system is like no other. Remarkable to work with and super reliable. Trying to compare it against Gemini or Temma just doesn't work, its in a league of its own. Its designed for robotic use down to the last line of code. If you are familiar with TheSky, you'll have no problems in understanding the mount operations. As has been said before in other PME discussions, get yourself a copy of AAG TPoint Mapper for your pointing models. It will allow you to hone in the polar alignment with excellent accuracy. I tried to record PEC with the FSQ but at the focal length of 530mm, PEMPro couldn't detect any PE! It is simply too low to measure. You'll have a blast using it for your imaging projects. The mount just works and delivers as expected. Will not be disappointed.

@Greg
Reading your post. Apologies, but I can't believe you use your joystick to center targets. Man! This is a robotic telescope mount! It sounds like your TPoint model is not accurate. Once the model is set, make sure you don't sync. Rule of thumb is sync before model, not after.

[Paul Haese]

Hehehe, yeah but it will have to do for now. I do have the Tak as well on the mount, buuuuut I could always do with a good second hand AP. I don't suppose you know where I can get one?:P

Greg, some of this I have already discovered but there is a lot to keep in mind. Thanks for the tips.



Doug this is for the remote site. Just planning for the future as Mike has rightly pointed out.

Thanks Jase, I was going to flash the PEC data will this affect the southern hemisphere setup? Reason I ask this is because the RA worm has been replaced and would need new PEC data for that worm. Not sure how to go about this?

[jase]

Click on the 'Zero Flash' button under the Periodic Error Correction tab to clear the current PEC. This will not affect your southern hemisphere set up. If however you click on the 'defaults' button under the setup tab, the MKS4000 system will be back to factory defaults. At this point you would need to ensure your hemisphere set up is correct. The configured settings are written into NVRAM (flash).

[Doomsayer]

A wonderful mount for sure - it feels 'transparent' to me when all of the bits are working together so seamlessly. I use SoftwareBisque's PrecisionPEC software to measure and upload a PEC curve into the memory - it isn't terriibly sophisticated software but is designed to work closely with the PME and theSky. PEMpro does a good job as well.

Tpoint takes a while to figure out properly, but is worth the effort. The key is using well mapped points and correct application of correct modelling terms. With good alignment and a good Tpoint model I get better than 10 arc second pointing. Automating Tpoint mapping is the other great add on - as said in other threads here - if you add Pinpoint for platesolving and the freeware called 'AAG Tpoint Mapper' you can sit back and watch while the whole system maps points automatlically - you can generate a useful 50 or 60 pointing model in about half an hour or so. You need 25-30 good points to get a handle on polar alignment.

Having notches on the azmuth and altitude adjustment knobs which are marked in arc second based increments makes alignment with Tpoint even easier.

My mount came from Mayhill New Mexico and used to carry a 20"RCOS. I'm about to try piggybacking my FSQ and Proline on the 12"RC - another counterweight is on the way. As a result I have an extra long shaft and numerous PME counterweights.

guy

[jase]

http://www.bisque.com/tom/Paramount/outofbox.asp

Also for those that missed it in the TPoint doco (page 27);

[Paul Haese]

Thanks guys, good to learn all this.

[marc4darkskies]

Congrats Paul ... I'm feeling left out now :sadeyes: Hoping it's not too long before I join the fraternity!! :)

Cheers, Marcus

[Paul Haese]

Don't feel left out Marcus. The EM400 is a great mount and I am only going this path because of future weight constraints. Buying a new unit was prohibitive, but a second hand unit with a new worm gear was just what I needed.

[marc4darkskies]

Me too! :D

Cheers, Marcus

PS: And you'd have to be a mug not to buy Paul's EM-400 (or mine ;)) if you're in the market for a top notch mount!! :)

[gregbradley]

@Greg
Reading your post. Apologies, but I can't believe you use your joystick to center targets. Man! This is a robotic telescope mount! It sounds like your TPoint model is not accurate. Once the model is set, make sure you don't sync. Rule of thumb is sync before model, not after.[/QUOTE]


Hi Jase,

I do need to make a larger Tpoint model but I guess the problem there is once I have several mappings I adjust the polar alignment again. Then I delete the model and start again. Perhaps there is a way to keep the data already found that way. Don't forget I am imaging at 3 metres not 500mm and the object is usually close to centre but not centre. Also when you are creating the model the objects aren't centred otherwise you would need to create a model if they were. How do you centre the object when creating the model - with the AAG software? I haven't used that yet. Perhaps I should.

Thanks for the tip but I did know about the sync for short mapping runs.

Greg.

[bert]

The aag software plate solves each slew. So it does not need to recentre the target. If you are not centering each target manually, the tpoint model will not be valid anyway.

Aag is extremely easy to use, but it does require pinpoint. Pinpoint is very handy for other purposes as well so it is well worth the purchase.

With aag automapper I can do a 60 point model in around 40 minutes unattended.

Brett

[Moon]

Paul
You are doing the right thing reading the manual. It's really well written.
My only advise it - don't tinker! There really isn't any need. Most problems are usually operator error. If you do get stuck, post a question to the Paramount forum on the SB web site.
James

[gregbradley]

Thanks Brett. I remember now why I haven't used it - I had to buy another bit of software - Pinpoint.

Seems like there is always something else we "need".

Greg.